Man U 0-0 Watford: Cristiano Ronaldo blocked Fernandes shot when he bizarrely froze | OneFootball

Manchester United suffered an unexpected blow in their quest for a top-four Premier League finish on Saturday when they were held to a goalless draw by relegation-threatened Watford at Old Trafford – on a day when Cristiano Ronaldo will be wondering how he didn’t get on the scoresheet.

The tone of the five-time Ballon d’Or winner’s afternoon was set in the early stages of proceedings when he struck a post as he attempted to steer the ball into the bottom corner of the net.

Further frustration wasn’t far away as the Portuguese superstar had a goal disallowed for offside in the 15th minute of the match.

Looking back, Ronaldo will be disappointed that he didn’t hold his run to stay the right side of Hornets defender Samir.

If Ronaldo was hoping that the second half would be any kinder to him, he was in for more disappointment.

Just after the hour mark, with the goal seemingly at his mercy following a low cross from Bruno Fernandes, the 37-year-old somehow managed to smash the ball into a Watford defender – before it ricocheted out for a corner.

The opposition throwing their bodies in the way of shots is to be expected, particularly when a side is in as much trouble as Watford.

However, Ralf Rangnick won’t have expected one of his own men to be blocking efforts at goal, but that is exactly what Ronaldo ended up doing during the opening minutes of the second period in the most outlandish fashion.

As his countryman Fernandes fired towards Ben Foster’s goal, Ronaldo inexplicably failed to get out of the ball’s path, meaning that the strike cannoned into him.

Footage of the incident has since emerged on social media – and we still can’t figure out what Ronaldo was doing here – even after watching the clip numerous times.

The United legend seems to completely switch off while standing in the Watford penalty area. His only movements were some strange hand gestures, which almost look like he’s texting on an imaginary mobile phone.

We promise we’re not making this up – and to prove it you can check out the bizarre moment below.

Watch: Cristiano Ronaldo totally switches off as he blocks teammates shot v Watford

The video, uploaded by Twitter user @afcben19, was captioned: ‘Ronaldo just texting his wife mid-game’.

In fairness, that makes just about as much sense as any explanation we can come up with.

The baffling passage of play attracted plenty of attention on social media and you can check out some of the reaction below.

Football mascots quiz: Can you name the weird and wonderful characters at British clubs?

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Let’s start easy: who’s this iconic character?

Jurassic Jeff The Green Gunner Gunnersaurus Rex Triassic Tony

Man Utd flop! (Reaction via The Football Terrace)